Kevin Pietersen twice hit sixes left-handed on his way to a century against New Zealand on Sunday. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

The response to Kevin Pietersen's audacious switch-hitting has been immediate. The MCC, as custodian of the Laws, will hold an emergency discussion about Pietersen's innovative method tomorrow as the debate rages about whether the tactic should be deemed illegal.

The MCC laws committee will discuss the legality of Pietersen's switch-hitting – in which he transforms himself into a left-hander with the bowler approaching the crease - after a request from the International Cricket Council.

An MCC spokesman confirmed: "This is on the agenda but the Law is not about to change overnight. It is not just to do with Kevin Pietersen. The ICC had already asked us to consider the topic of grip changes and reverse sweeps. The shot has generated a lot of interest but we won't be making any further comment until after the meeting."

The ruling might not only apply to Pietersen, but he has certainly brought the issue into focus after twice striking the slow-medium bowler, Scott Styris, for six – the first over what had become deep square-leg to a left-hander, the second over what was now long-on – in England's opening ODI against New Zealand at the Riverside on Sunday.

The shot is natural not just to his extrovert personality, but also his special talent; he plays golf left-handed. Few will yearn for the MCC to punish talent in an extreme manner and accidentally banish all forms of reverse sweep entirely in the process.

But the MCC's overriding task is to decide what constitutes fair play. The majority feeling seems to be that reverse sweeps are now an accepted part of the game, but that Pietersen's brazen tactics, in which he switches his stance before the bowler delivers, is tantamount to unfair play and that the umpire should call dead ball.

It is still debated whether the reverse sweep was invented by Hanif Mohammad or his brother, Mushtaq, but that it was Made in Pakistan in the 1950s is generally accepted. It only entered regular use, to widespread disapproval, in the 1990s. Dermot Reeve, another innovator, taught his Warwickshire side to stand square on to spinners as if playing French cricket. Surrey's captain, Adam Hollioake, was one of the first to turn his body around the slog-sweep, rather than sweep gently – hitting the ball with surprising power.

Some players switched hands, some did not. Some turned their body around, others preferred not to. The reverse sweep has always come in many forms, until recently frowned upon by the coaching manuals.

By switching his stance with the bowler still to enter his delivery stride, Pietersen has probably pushed the lawmakers too far. Most obviously, he invites the question as to whether he faces the ball as a right-hander or left-hander and how the lbw law should be properly applied. But that question is just one of many.

Pietersen said after his Riverside hundred, his first in ODIs in England: "Everybody wants brand new ideas, new inventions and that's a new shot. Nobody has seen it before. There are new things happening to cricket at the moment and people are criticising all the time. There should just be positives about all the stuff that's happening.''